Mzinga Acquires Prospero, Solidifying Market Leadership
in Business Social Media
Acquisition Underscores “Pervasive Community” Strategy
for Workplace and Customer Communities
Burlington, MA — March 3, 2008 — Mzinga
(www.mzinga.com), the leader in workplace community solutions, today
announced it has acquired Littleton, MA-based Prospero Technologies
(www.prospero.com), the leader in customer community solutions.
Prospero has a strong client base in the media, entertainment, and
publishing sectors, and owns online community properties Talk City and
Delphi Forums.
With this acquisition, Mzinga now offers the broadest suite of
workplace and customer community solutions that allow businesses to
increase revenue, lower costs, accelerate product innovation, and
engender customer loyalty. The two companies bring together an
unparalleled combination of highly scalable business social media
technology, in-depth moderation services, and deep domain expertise
focused on improving business processes for marketing, human resources,
and customer service professionals.
“Business leaders are quickly realizing they need to integrate the
voice of their customers and employees to ensure their success in
today’s highly connected world,” said Mzinga Chairman Barry Libert,
co-author of the book We Are Smarter Than Me. “The most successful
companies are weaving the concept of ‘pervasive community’ into the
fabric of their organizations to improve standard business processes,
including employee development, product innovation, and customer
satisfaction.”
Mzinga Differentiation: Expertise, Scale, and Results
“There are plenty of tools providers and white label offerings in
the social media marketplace today,” said Rick Faulk, CEO of Mzinga.
“What sets us apart is our ability to apply our accumulated expertise
to helping customers solve specific business problems – not just in the
deployment of the technology, but also in design, goal-setting,
management, and ongoing moderation.”
The acquisition establishes Mzinga as the clear leader in business
social media over an array of niche providers, as evidenced by several
key business metrics.
- More than $30 million in revenue
- 1 billion page requests per month
- 27 million users in 160 countries worldwide
- 350K new users each month
- 150 employees
Mzinga’s customers include globally recognized brand leaders, such as
ABC, AOL, ESPN, CBS.com, iVillage, Chevron Corporation, Johnson &
Johnson, Marsh, Inc., Mercer, Prudential Financial, Deutsche Post World
Net, United Nations Development Programme, Depository Trust &
Clearing Corporation, and many others.
“We have seen explosive growth as our customers have realized the
value of our social media solutions,” said Dan Bruns, co-founder of
Prospero, and now Mzinga’s EVP of Social Media. “This transaction
provides us with greater organizational focus and a critical mass of
resources to address the rapidly expanding market for our services.”
Flexible SaaS Technology & Deployment Options
Mzinga’s software-as-a-service technology platform provides the
broadest suite of social media applications, flexible integration
options, and enterprise-grade moderation capabilities to ensure
efficient, secure control of user-generated content.
The platform allows tremendous flexibility in the way social media
technology is deployed to meet the needs of a variety of customers.
Using “widget” technology, one or more social media elements may be
seamlessly embedded into a customer’s web site, while template
functionality can be used to create private-label community destination
sites. Customers also have the option of crafting their own look and
feel, and integrating social media features via API into their web
pages or other applications.
This social media technology will be rapidly integrated into
Mzinga’s industry-leading learning platform. The resulting “learning
2.0” functionality is a core element of Mzinga’s broad-based workplace
offering. It addresses the demand of Mzinga’s existing enterprise
customers seeking to improve their recruiting, onboarding, and learning
activities.
Social Media Empowers the Workplace
"New workforce demographics demand that corporations integrate social
networking solutions into their employee development environment," said
Josh Bersin, CEO of Bersin & Associates, a premier research and
advisory services firm focused on enterprise learning and talent
management.
"With its experience in both corporate learning and business-driven
social media, Mzinga is in a unique position to fill this need for the
corporate buyer. The Prospero acquisition greatly improves Mzinga's
position by providing well architected, proven social media technology
which can rapidly be integrated into existing talent management
solutions."
The acquisition was facilitated by the New York investment banking firm of North Haven Partners, Inc.
About Mzinga
Mzinga is the leading provider of business social media solutions to
drive growth, innovation, and learning. Its combination of highly
scalable technology, rich domain expertise, and moderation services
enables businesses to harness the collective intelligence of employees,
customers, and partners to achieve tangible business results.
Marketing, customer service, and human resources professionals deploy
Mzinga’s “pervasive community” solutions to achieve higher revenues,
lower costs, and greater workplace satisfaction.
Mzinga, whose name means “beehive” in Swahili, is headquartered in
Burlington, Massachusetts, and is generating more than $30M in revenue
with 150 employees. With 14,000 communities under management, Mzinga
services more than 1 billion monthly page requests from 27 million
users in 160 countries worldwide.
Mzinga’s marquee list of customers includes such global brands as
ABC, AOL, ESPN, CBS.com, iVillage, Chevron Corporation, Johnson &
Johnson, Marsh, Inc., Mercer, Prudential Financial, Deutsche Post World
Net, United Nations Development Programme, and Depository Trust &
Clearing Corporation.
For additional information, visit http://www.mzinga.com/pr/
To join the conversation, visit http://www.mzinga.com/blogs/
To learn more about We Are Smarter Than Me, or to contribute to the next edition in the series, visit http://www.wearesmarter.org.
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Press Contact
Mariana Pinner
PerkettPR for Mzinga
Phone 617.262.8282
Email
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Doug Haslam
Topaz Partners for Prospero
Phone 781.404.2419
Email
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What does this REALLY mean?
Well, I have been a Delphi Forums member for 8 years in total. I have seen the number of trolls increase and the amount of Terms of Service People increase and the TOS offenses not handled evenly across the board.
This acquistion intrigues me.
Is it a way to muddy the waters so that the deception played out by political parties is not realized?
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